In four years of surfing waves that most of us prefer to appreciate from the comfort of a sturdy, concrete structure far inshore, Maya Gabeira has had a jet ski fall on her, broken her nose in 12 places, and negotiated the taunts and posturing of the boys' club that is big-wave surfing.
Snowboarding, then, should have been a cakewalk. But on her first ride on the bunny slopes in the California mountains four months ago, she managed only a short distance before taking a fall. "Everyone was like, 'Yeah, Maya, you're going to rip, it's just like surfing," she says, her infectious laughter giving away the punchline. "I broke my arm!"
Gabeira has spent the past few months laid up in her house in Hawaii, recovering in time to complete a move to southern California, where she picked up her fourth consecutive Billabong XXL Global Big Wave Award for overall female performance in April. The award capped a remarkable year for Gabeira and her sport. El Niño's winter storms brought massive swells to big-wave spots around the world, from the cold-water break of Mavericks in California, to shark-infested Dungeons in South Africa and Tahiti's deep, curling Teahup'o. At Waimea Bay, the legendary -- and seldom staged -- Eddie Aikau big-wave competition was held after waves up to 50-foot began buffeting the shoreline in December last year.
"It was a busy year," she says. "I just got into that rhythm. I was getting comfortable surfing them so often that you see the difference and get confident."
There are no other women who chase big waves around the globe the way Gabeira does. "Maya is like: 'I want that'," says Carlos Burle, a dean of the big-wave surfing community and Gabeira's mentor. "She wants it really bad, she's a warrior. You can tell that."
Not at first. If Gabeira's bronzed skin and sun-streaked hair are typical of the stunning women Brazil produces with alarming regularity, then her muscular shoulders, toned legs and a body marked with scratches and bruises tell another story. Her voice is thick with a drowsy Carioca drawl, the words coming as if poured into a tall glass on a sweltering Rio afternoon. Underneath the chilled-out facade is a woman driven to pursue a rush few of us will ever know.
Underneath the chilled-out facade is a woman driven to pursue a rush few of us will ever know.
"I thought it would be so cool to have a girl who could do it just like the boys," she says. "I thought if I ever saw a girl doing it, I'd be impressed...right now, I can't even visualize that that girl is me."
The daughter of a fashion designer and one of Brazil's best-known politicians, Gabeira only started surfing when she was 14. Hooked, she wangled a high-school year abroad on Australia's Gold Coast before leaving home at 17 to move to Hawaii.
Her meager English qualified her for a waitress job, where she would read the menu to customers and cast covetous glances at the waves breaking on Waimea Bay. She'd paddle out on massive days, just to bob up and down in the surf, getting used to the turbulence and watching veterans like Andrew Marr and Clark Abbey. "You figure 'OK, I can survive this,'" she says. "So if you can survive this, then you can surf it, and then you're through to another level."
Photos of her on 40-foot waves in Waimea, Mavericks, and Todos Santos in Mexico in 2006, gave notice to the surfing community -- and the boys -- that Gabeira was no longer an interloper, but one of their own. "There's so many barriers to break, it's something new, you know," she says, her voice trailing off. "It's a man's world and once you put yourself out there, you have to take whatever comes your way. And sometimes it's not nice stuff."
Gabeira's fame has spread and her surfing heroes have responded by embracing the young Brazilian. At this year's Billabong Awards, Shane Dorian, one of Gabeira's idols, singled her out as an inspiration as he accepted his award for Ride of the Year.
"I was overwhelmed," says Gabeira. "I've always looked up to him. To hear that from him was the highlight of my night. Bigger even than my award."
More of that is sure to come for Gabeira. On the waves, that is. Not so much the slopes.
Watch Maya Gabeira along with Sally Fitzgibbons and Sofia Mulanovich here:
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